ASSAULT OF THE BLUFFS

THE OUTSTANDING FACT about these first two hours of action is that despite
heavy casualties, loss of equipment, disorganization, and all the other
discouraging features of the landings, the assault troops did not stay
pinned down behind the sea wall and embankment. At half-a-dozen or more
points on the long stretch, they found the necessary drive to leave their
cover and move out over the open beach flat toward the bluffs. Prevented
by circumstance of mislandings from using carefully rehearsed tactics,
they improvised assault methods to deal with what defenses they found before
them. In nearly every case where advance was attempted, it carried through
the enemy beach defenses. Some penetrations were made by units of company
strength; some were made by intermingled sections of different companies;
some were accomplished by groups of 20 or 30 men, unaware that any other
assaults were under way. Even on such terrain as Omaha Beach, the phenomenon
of battlefield "isolation" was a common occurrence, and units
often failed to see what was going on 200 yards to their flanks on the
open beach.

Various factors, some of them difficult to evaluate, played a part in
the success of these advances. Chance was certainly one; some units happened
to be at points where the enemy defenses were weak, where smoke from grass
fires gave concealment, or where dangerous strongpoints had been partly
neutralized by naval fire or by the tanks. At one or two areas of penetration,
notably Fox Green, destroyers' guns and tanks were called on for support
during the assault and rendered good service. Combat engineers blew many
of the gaps through enemy wire, helped get across minefields, and took
part as infantry in some of the fighting on and past the bluffs.

But the decisive factor was leadership. Wherever an advance was made,
it depended on the presence of some few individuals, officers and noncommissioned
officers, who inspired, encouraged, or bullied their men forward, often
by making the first forward moves. On Easy Red a lieutenant and a wounded
sergeant of divisional engineers stood up under fire and walked over to
inspect the wire obstacles just beyond the embankment. The lieutenant came
back and, hands on hips, looked down disgustedly at the men lying behind
the shingle bank. "Are you going to lay there and get killed, or get
up and do something about it?" Nobody stirred, so the sergeant and
the officer got the materials and blew the wire. On the same sector, where
a group advancing across the flat was held up by a marshy area suspected
of being mined, it was a lieutenant of engineers who crawled ahead through
the mud on his belly, probing for mines with a hunting knife in the absence
of other equipment. When remnants of an isolated boat section of Company
B, 116th Infantry, were stopped by fire from a well-concealed emplacement,
the lieutenant in charge went

Page 58

after it single-handed. In trying to grenade the rifle pit he was hit
by three rifle bullets and eight grenade fragments, including some from
his own grenade. He turned his map and compass over to a sergeant and ordered
his group to press on inland.

One characteristic of these early penetrations was to influence the
rest of the action on D Day at Omaha: the penetrations were made not at
the draws but in areas between them, by advances up the bluffs. Mislandings
may have had something to do with this, but the chief factor seems to have
been the survival of the enemy strongpoints protecting the draws, for units
which landed directly in front of them, especially at D-1, D3, and E-3,
had suffered crippling losses and were unable to press the assault. The
first advances were effected in the intervals between strongpoints, where
the enemy defenses were thin. The routes planned as exits for movement
of tanks and vehicles from the beach were not cleared.

The Advance From Dog White

The most important penetration on the western beaches (Map No. VII)
was made by Company C, 116th Infantry, and by the 5th Ranger Battalion,
which had landed partly on top of Company C. Both units were in relatively
good condition after the landings and had suffered only minor losses, but
the men were crowded shoulder to shoulder, sometimes several rows deep,
along the shingle at the base of the timber sea wall.

Page 60

Intermingled with these troops were one or two boat sections from other
units of the 116th, and some engineer elements. Reorganization for assault
was spurred by the presence of General Cota and the command group of the
116th Infantry, who had landed in this area about 0730. Exposed to enemy
fire, which wounded Colonel Canham in the wrist, they walked up and down
behind the crowded sea wall, urging officers and noncoms to "jar men
loose" and get moving.

The sector was relatively favorable or an advance across the beach flat
and up the bluff. The nearest enemy strongpoints were several hundred yards
off to either flank, and no concentrated fire was hitting the area congested
with assault troops. In front of them, heavy smoke from grass fires on
the bluff was drifting eastward along the face of the slope. From sea wall
to the foot of the rise was only 150 yards, but the flat ground, with patches
of marsh near the hill, was nearly devoid of cover. Along the whole stretch
between D-1 and D-3 draws the bluff is steep and bare, but men climbing
the slope would find small folds and depressions for defilade against small-arms
fire. German defenses at this part of Dog White consisted of lightly manned
rifle pits connected by deep trenches and placed just at the crest of the

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bluff, with a few machine-gun emplacements sited for flanking fires
on other stretches of beach rather than for dealing with troops coming
directly from below.

Company C's movement began about 0750. Across the promenade road that
edged the sea wall was a double-apron wire entanglement. Pvt. Ingram E.
Lambert jumped over the wall, crossed the road, and set a bangalore torpedo.
When he pulled the friction igniter, it failed to act and Lambert was killed
by a machine-gun bullet. The platoon leader, 2d Lt. Stanley M. Schwartz,
went over and fixed the igniter.

The explosive blew a large gap. The first man to try it was shot down;
others followed and took shelter in some empty trenches just beyond the
road, where they were joined by another group that had got through the
barrier by cutting the wire. After a delay of 5 to 10 minutes, while more
troops crossed the road to the trenches, they started again toward the
bluff, finding minor concealment from light enemy fire in the tall grass
and occasional bushes. Once they were on the hillside, the defilade and
smoke gave good protection, but progress was slowed by fear of mines. The
men went up

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in a narrow column, searching the ground before them as they climbed
and angling west to take advantage of a faint path. No enemy were found
in trenches along the crest. The column went a couple of hundred yards
into flat, open fields and stopped as it met scattered fire from machine
guns at some distance to the flanks. This was the only sign of enemy resistance,
and Company C had taken only half-a-dozen casualties after leaving the
sea wall. Capt. Berthier B. Hawks, who had suffered a crushed foot in debarking,
got to the top with his men.

The 5th Ranger Battalion joined the advance very soon after it started,
and some of the Rangers were intermingled with Company C as they went forward.
The battalion had reached the sea wall just before 0800, in platoon formations.
Hasty preparations were made for assault, and Colonel Schneider passed
the word "Tallyho" to his officers, this being the order for
each platoon to make its own way beyond the bluffs to the assembly area
south of Vierville. About 0810 the Rangers began to cross the road; what
with the confusion at the beach and the smoke ahead, few of them realized
that Company C was already on the move in the same one. Four gaps were
blown in the wire with bangalores and the men went across the beach flat
at the double, then slowed to a crawl on the steep hillside. Heavy smoke
covered them on the climb, forcing some men to put on gas masks. By the
time the crest was reached, platoon formations were disorganized and contacts
lost. Just over the bluff top, German warning signs enabled the Rangers
to avoid a minefield from which engineers later took 150 mines. The first
groups up, a platoon of Company A and some men of Company E, went straight
on inland and disappeared. The other platoons were on top by 0830 and stopped
to reorganize. On the left flank of the battalion, Company D's platoons
had to clean out a few Germans from a trench system along the bluff edge,
knocking out a machine gun sited just below the crest and firing along
the beach. The battalion had lost only eight men, to small-arms fire that
became more ineffective as the movement progressed across the beach flat.

The advance from Dog White Beach had taken place on a narrow front of
less than 300 yards. By 0830 the last groups were leaving the sea wall,
and the command party established itself temporarily halfway up the bluff.
Unsuccessful efforts were made to reach 1st Division units by SCR 300.
Fire from enemy mortars began to range in on the slope for the first time,
killing two men standing near General Cota and knocking down the General
and his aide. The headquarters party moved on up to the top, joined by
some elements of Company G and a machine-gun platoon of Company H, which
had reached Dog White after moving laterally along the sea wall from D-3
draw. The command party found work to do on the high ground. Company C,
the 5th Ranger Battalion, and small elements of other units were intermingled
in the fields just beyond the bluff, disordered by the advance and not
sure of the next move. Scattered small-arms fire was keeping men down,
and some shells began to hit in the vicinity.

Just east of Dog White, the penetration area was widened before 0900
by the action of small parties from Companies F and B. Remnants of three
boat sections of Company F crossed the beach flat and got up the bluff;
a short distance behind them came an isolated section of B. Neither group
had to contend with enemy resistance at the crest. The Company F sections
drifted right and eventually joined the 5th Rangers. The Company B party
of a dozen men started left, toward les Moulins, and was stopped by a machine
gun. 1st Lt. William B. Williams assaulted it single-handed, was wounded,
and ordered his men to move to Vierville.

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The Advance Between D-3 and E-1 Draws

The 3d BLT of the 116th had come in on a half-mile stretch of beach
including most of Easy Green and the western end of Easy Red. All units
were facing unfamiliar ground, east of their appointed landing sectors,
in some cases as much as 1,200 yards. Losses had not been heavy in crossing
the tidal flat. The boat sections of Companies K and I were fairly well
together on Easy Green; L and M, more scattered, were to the east (Map
No. VI). Since each boat team was supposed to make its own way past the
bluffs to a battalion assembly area about a mile inland, no attempt was
made to organize the companies for assault, and forward movement was undertaken
by many small groups starting at different times, acting independently,
and only gradually coming together as they got inland by different routes
and with different rates of progress. By 0900, elements of all three rifle
companies were past the bluff (Map No. 3, page 64).

Company I was nearest the strongpoints defending les Moulins draw, but
was receiving little fire from that direction. Each of the two assault
sections made breaches in the wire along the embankment, needing four sections
of a bangalore in one case but only wire cutters in the other. The assault
sections moved out onto the flat, followed a little later by the other
sections as they found their way to the gaps. Not all of the men who had
landed moved out from the embankment; control was difficult. One section
leader of Company I moved a hundred yards west, found a gap in the wire,
and came back for his men. Under the impression that they were following,
he went through the gap and was out on the flat before he realized that
he had only 10 soldiers with him. A sergeant who went back could not find
the others, and the section leader did not see them again for two days.

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MAP NO. 3 The Advance between D-3 and E-1 Draws

Page 65

The beach flat was open, with some swamp and brush near the foot of
the bluff, and there was little cover on the sharp slopes of the bluff.
Fortunately, enemy small-arms fire was light and scattering, and there
was no shelling. Minefields, encountered on the flat and on the bluffs,
caused delays while the troops found a safe way around. Here as elsewhere
on D Day, movement off the beach was not made by "charges." Each
section of 20 to 30 men tended to advance in an irregular column, sometimes
a single file, and was often checked by a burst of enemy fire or the discovery
of mines. It took half an hour for leading elements to reach the bluff
top, and much longer for some of the sections which started later. No enemy
resistance was met at the edge of the high ground, where the troops came
out in the open fields stretching toward St-Laurent. Elements of three
or four sections came together soon after reaching the top, and took shelter
behind an east-west hedgerow about 200 yards from the bluff. Few of the
men knew where they were (afterwards, some described their position as
being west of D-3), and there was no sign of enemy or friendly troops.

Company K's sections, close by I on the beach, were slow in getting
started and had more trouble getting to the top. Sporadic machine-gun fire
hit a few men on the beach, and mines, thickly sown, caused difficulty
on the bluff slope. Although naval gunfire and rockets had torn up the
slopes so much as to expose many mines, guides had to be placed to mark
safe routes. K had lost 15 to 20 men when the sections got to the top,
shortly after 0900. A stray group of Company G was just ahead of them.
K's sections had begun to bunch together as they met on the climb or at
the top, though there was no intention of organizing as a company. This
was characteristic of the fighting that day; as one soldier described it,
any small party seeing a bigger one "wanted company" and joined
up, sometimes with units of a different company or battalion. K's sections
made a couple of hundred yards beyond the bluff, then were pinned to the
ground in open fields by scattered machine-gun fire and some shelling.

Company L's boat teams were somewhat more separated and so took longer
in drawing together; otherwise, their story is much like K and I. Each
boat team made its own way from the embankment to the high ground against
ineffective enemy fire and with very few losses. Once on top the sections
began to work to the southwest, knowing they had come in to the left of
their target area. As they pushed inland, the teams began to meet resistance
from small enemy pockets in prepared positions.

Company M's sections, most of them landed together, were near enough
the E-1 strongpoints to be met by heavy fire as soon as they attempted
to cross the beach flat. They managed to reach a gully which gave some
defilade, and here they set up four machine guns and two heavy mortars.
With these, they engaged the enemy emplacements near E-1, and snipers along
the bluff. Six men were shot in attempts to find a route beyond the gully
to reach the hill. The larger part of Company M was held here until later
in the morning, when the arrival of massive reinforcements in front of
E-1 broke the stalemate.

The Advance From Easy Red

Elements of three companies shared in the assault on the bluffs between
E-1 and E-3 draws (Maps Nos. 4 and VIII). At this part of Easy Red, the
beach shelf above the shingle embankment is more than a hundred yards wide,
with areas of swamp along the inland edge of the flat. One hundred and
thirty feet high on this sector, the bluff is reached

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MAP NO. 4 Advance from Easy Red (Photograph of 15 February 1944)

Page 67

by 200 yards of moderate slope, patched with heavy bush. Five hundred
yards west of E-3, a small draw led up at a slight angle to the west, forming
a possible corridor for advance to the bluff crest. Below the draw on the
flat was a ruined house.

The 1st Section of Company E, 16th Infantry, and two of the scattered
sections of E, 116th, had come to shore here in the first wave. The 16th's
unit, led by 2d Lt. John M. Spalding, blew a gap in the wire above the
shingle, made its way past the house, and then was held up by minefields
in the marshy ground at the foot of the slopes. Intense small-arms fire
came from an emplacement to the left, in the E-3 strongpoint. Spalding's
men found a way past the mines and were beginning to work up the slope,
using the defilade afforded by the small draw. To the west, and out of
contact, the two sections from the 116th had cut the wire and dashed across
the flat, but mines stopped them near the start of the hillside and they
took shelter in a ditch. A soldier who went ahead to clear a path by use
of a bangalore was killed by an antipersonnel mine.

Meanwhile Company G of the 16th RCT had landed (0700) and had reached
the embankment in good order. The company's machine guns, set up behind
the shingle, found no targets until LCVP's of the 1st Battalion, coming
toward the beach (about 0730), drew enemy fire from 8 or 10 small emplacements
along the half mile of bluff. While the heavy weapons built up a volume
of supporting fire, a few men from each section blew gaps in the extensive
double-apron and concertina wire beyond the shingle. Their work was made
more difficult by anti-personnel mines set to detonate by trip wires.

Page 68

Four bangalores were required to cut one lane. Engineers of Company
A, 1st Engineer Combat Battalion and Company C, 37th Engineer Combat Battalion
helped in gapping and marking the lanes. When G's men reached the slopes
they came in contact with Lieutenant Spalding's section of E and the two
sections of the 116th. In an effort to coordinate the advance, an arrangement
was made with these units to operate on Company G's right.

The mined areas, in which a part of the mines were faked, slowed up
every unit that crossed the beach, then and for some time. Company G found
one route through the mines by going over the dead bodies of two soldiers
who had been caught there earlier. While the company was making its way
across the flat, bothered more by the minefields than enemy fire, Capt.
Joseph T. Dawson and one man went on ahead. When they were halfway up the
hill, an enemy machine gun at the head of the small draw forced Dawson
into cover. He sent his companion back to bring up the company and crawled
on from one patch of brush to another. By the time he was 75 yards from
the gun, the enemy lost sight of him. Circling to his left, he came to
the military crest a little beyond the machine gun, and got within 30 feet
before the Germans spotted him and swung their weapon around. Dawson threw
a fragmentation grenade which killed the crew. This action opened the way
up the little draw, but it took some time to get the company up as a result
of

Page 69

disorganization suffered in crossing the beach flat. The 5th Section,
first to arrive, knocked out two more machine guns and took a prisoner.
On the whole, enemy opposition had not been heavy, and cover on the slopes
allowed Company G to make the crest with few casualties. Their movement
forward, from embankment to the bluff top, had taken place between 0730
and 0830. Enemy fire died away as the troops emerged on the fields of the
upland, reorganized, and started south in column of sections. Their principal
concern was with the frequent indications of mined areas just beyond the
bluff top.

To their right Lieutenant Spalding's section of Company E, 16th RCT,
was getting up about the same time, helped by covering fire from Company
G, and effecting a useful extension of the front of penetration. The section
now numbered 3 men, having lost 3 at the beach and 3 more getting past
an enemy machine gun on the bluff side. The gun was operated by a lone
soldier

Page 70

who was captured and found to be Polish. He informed Spalding that there
were 16 enemy in trenches to his rear. The Company E section got to the
trenches, sprayed them with fire and found the Germans had withdrawn. Spalding
turned west along the bluff crest, losing contact with Company G as that
unit headed south. Moving through hedgerowed fields and wooded areas, the
Company E group came up on the rear of the strongpoint guarding E-1 draw.
The Germans were manning trenches overlooking the beach, and attack from
the high ground caught them by surprise. In two hours of confused fighting,
Spalding's men got through the outworks of this

Page 71

strongpoint and overcame opposition by close-in work with grenades and
rifles

Naval fire hitting in the parts of the strong-point below the bluff
top, helped to demoralize the resistance. Twenty-one prisoners were taken,
and several enemy killed, without loss to the attackers. Although the fortified
area was too extensive to be thoroughly cleaned out by Spalding's small
force, the strongpoint east of E-1 had been effectively neutralized by
midmorning, just when important reinforcements for the assault were beginning
to land in front of the draw. About 1100 Spalding's section was joined
by some other elements of Company E, which had come up from further east.
They brought word from battalion to head south for Colleville.

The area opened up by Company G became a funnel for movement off the
beach during the rest of the morning. The command group of the 16th RCT
had landed in two sections; the first, coming in at 0720, lost the executive
officer and 35 men on the tidal flat. Col. George A. Taylor arrived in
the second section at 0815 and found plenty to do on the beach. Men were
still hugging the embankment, disorganized, and suffering casualties from
mortar and artillery fire. Colonel Taylor summed up the situation in terse
phrase: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and
those who are going to die-now let's et the hell out of here." Small
groups of men were collected without regard to units, put under charge
of the nearest noncommissioned officer, and sent on through the wire and
across the flat, while engineers worked hard to widen gaps in the wire
and to mark lanes through the minefields. Confusion prevailed all the way
along the route to the bluff top, with enough scattered enemy fire from
the flanks and mortar fire falling on the bluff slope to cause more delay
and to give late-comers the impression that they were leading the assault.
A traffic jam threatened to clog the trail through the little draw, as
leaderless groups stopped to rest just below the shelter of the crest;
one such group was picked up by an engineer platoon going inland as a security
patrol and went on with them. Colonel Taylor's command

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MAP NO. 5 (Below) The Penetration at Fox Green. Aerial photo (above), taken
31 May 1944, shows approximately same area as the map.

Page 73

post was set up just below the bluff crest, and regimental and battalion
officers concentrated on getting men forward. Despite all difficulties,
troops were brought up from both flanks of the penetration area and sent
inland. During the morning a few scattered sections of Companies E, F,
and H moved laterally along the beach from the east and took Company G's
route; the 1st Battalion, 16th RCT, came over from the west.

The 1st BLT of the 16th landed between 0730-0800, with Company A just
east of E-1, and B and C near the area where 2d BLT troops were then starting
up the bluff. Company A moved across the flat and had serious difficulties
after passing the antitank ditch below the E-1 strongpoint; mines and small-arms
fire inflicted 48 casualties, including 3 officers. Reaching the bluff
slope, Company A found more mines and to avoid them took a path that led
eastward along the lower slope. Movement was slow, as the men went along
the path in single file and had to cross areas exposed to enemy fire, and
further difficulty was caused by meeting a party of 116th men going in
the opposite direction. The other units of the 1st BLT got to the bluff
crest about 0930, in the area where Company G had already passed inland.

The Advance From Fox Green

Fox Green fronted two exit routes: the fairly large valley (E-3) winding
a mile inland toward Colleville and, 600 yards to the east, an area (F1)
where the bluff front was only slightly interrupted by a shallow and steep
draw. Two main enemy strongpoints, one just east of F-1 and the other near
the Colleville draw, commanded the narrowing beach flat (Map No. 5).

As a result of the eastward trend of landing approaches, elements of
seven assault companies had come in on Fox Green by 0800. Behind the shingle
embankment scattered sections from Company E, 116th RCT, and Companies
E and F, 16th RCT, were intermingled with units of the 3d BLT of the 16th.
The 3d Battalion command group had come in west at another sector. Most
of the landings had been costly, and nowhere would discouraging conditions
seem to have had better opportunity for checking assault. Nevertheless,
by 0800, an assault was under way. Its main power came from Company L,
which landed fairly well together, kept its organization, and led off the
attack. But elements of Companies I, K, and E (116th) shared in the advance;
the heavy weapons of Company M were used to support it; and both tanks
and destroyers gave noteworthy assistance. Under most difficult circumstances,
enough coordination was somehow achieved to make possible a successful
advance.

Four sections of Company L had landed and reorganized on the western
end of Fox Red sector, where the bluff, merging here into a partial cliff
just beyond the highwater shingle, afforded good cover. The company commander
was killed as he exposed himself to direct the fire of some nearby tanks,
and 1st Lt. Robert R. Cutler, Jr., took command. The sections were moved
west, out of the shelter of the cliff and to a position where they were
just below the strongpoint commanding F-1 draw. Two tanks were called on
for fire support. As a scheme of maneuver, Lieutenant Cutler sent three
sections and headquarters, 2d and 3d Sections leading, up the draw a little
to the west of the strongpoint. There were no hostile prepared positions
at the head or the west side of the draw. The heavy brush gave good cover
from enemy small-arms fire, and the 2d and 3d Sections worked to the top
in squad columns without serious losses, despite crossing enemy minefields.
Here the

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(Photos)

Page 75

2d Section moved left and got in position to take the strongpoint from
behind; a little to the right, the 3d and 5th Sections moved a short distance
inland and organized a hasty defensive position. The three sections kept
in contact with each other and with the beach.

Other units were meantime starting up the slopes to assist Company L.
The 1st Section of Company L, reduced to 12 men by early losses and separated
from the rest of the company, had landed nearer E-3 and attempted to engage
the enemy strongpoint on that side of the assault area, which had been
Company L s original objective. Finding the fire too heavy, 1st. Lt. Kenneth
J. Klenk moved his handful of men east along the beach, picked up some
sections of Company E, 116th, and prepared to assault the F-1 strongpoint.
Capt. Kimball R. Richmond of Company I, who had just reached Fox Green
to find himself the senior officer present of the battalion, started to
organize the follow-up of Company L's advance. Two sections of Company
K, a handful from Company I, and Lieutenant Klenk's mixed detachment were
involved in this second assault wave, which went straight up toward the
strongpoint. Machine guns and mortars of Company M, the tanks, and naval
guns combined to cover the advance, and enemy fire was light. The Company
L sections already on the hill sprayed the strongpoint with BAR fire and
helped to keep the Germans down.

A destroyer' s fire, helpful in the first stages of the assault, now
caused a halt. The 2d Section of Company L, from on top of the hill, telephoned
the beach that it was ready to close on the strongpoint if naval fire could
be lifted; the second assault wave was stopped short of the enemy positions
by the same fire. When it lifted, the strongpoint was immediately stormed
by the troops coming at it from below. Enemy resistance was broken; grenades
and satchel charges cleaned out the trenches and emplacements, and 31 prisoners
were taken, 15 of them wounded. About 0900 the battalion was informed that
the strongpoint had been subdued, the action having required little more
than an hour. Led by Company L, the 3d BLT at once started south for inland
objectives.

Other Assault Actions

The penetrations described thus far opened the way for progress inland
on an important scale, but they do not tell the whole story of the assault.
At several parts of the beach lesser groups fought their way off the flat
in isolated battles, often without knowing what was happening elsewhere.
Stray boat sections of assault infantry, scratch parties of engineers,
advance elements of artillery units, stranded Navy men, and other personnel
took part in small actions which helped in weakening and disorganizing
enemy resistance along the beaches. Few of these actions got into the records,
and some cannot be located accurately in place and time. Two, involving
Ranger units, can be taken as examples.

Company C, 2d Ranger Battalion, was probably the first assault unit
to reach the high ground (beach sector Charlie) and did so in an area where
cliffs begin to border the western beach (Map No. VII). Landing in the
opening assault wave, about 30 men survived the ordeal of crossing the
sands and found shelter at the base of a 90-foot cliff, impossible to climb
except at a few points. Three men went off immediately to the west, looking
for a spot to go up. Three hundred yards away they tried a crevice in the
slope and made it by using bayonets for successive hand holds, pulling
each other along. 1st Lt. William D. Moody, in charge of the party, brought
along

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(Photo)

Page 77

4 toggle ropes and attached them to stakes in a minefield 15 feet below
the crest. Enemy small-arms fire opened up from the left, near a supposedly
fortified house. Moody and one Ranger went along the cliff edge toward
the house, reached a point above Company C, and shouted down directions.
The unit displaced to the ropes and monkey-walked them to the top; all
men were up by 0730. While the movement was in progress, Capt. Ralph E.
Goranson saw an LCVP landing troops (a section of Company B, 116th RCT)
just below on the beach and sent a man back to guide them to the ropes.

Captain Goranson decided to go left toward the fortified house and knock
out any enemy positions there which would cause trouble on Dog Beach; then,
to proceed on his mission toward Pointe de la Percee. When the house was
reached, the Rangers found that just beyond it lay a German strongpoint
consisting of a maze of dugouts and trenches, including machine-gun emplacements
and a mortar position. Captain Goranson put men in an abandoned trench
just west of the house and started to feel out the enemy positions on the
other side. This began a series of small attacks which continued for hours
without any decisive result. The boat section of Company B, 116th RCT,
came up early and joined in, but even with this reinforcement Captain Goranson
s party was too small to knock out the enemy position. Three of four times,
attacking parties got around the house and into the German positions, destroying
the mortar post and inflicting heavy losses. Enemy reinforcements kept
coming up along communication trenches from the Vierville draw, and the
Ranger parties were not quite able to clean out the system of trenches
and dugouts. Finally, toward the end of the afternoon, the Rangers and
the Company B section succeeded in occupying the strongpoint and ending
resistance. They had suffered only 2 casualties; a Quartermaster burial
party later reported 69 enemy dead in the position. This action had tied
up one of the main German firing positions protecting the Vierville draw.

Small elements of the 2d Ranger Battalion also fought their own way
off Dog White, just west of the main penetration area. Less than half of
Companies A and B had reached the shelter of the sea wall, about 0740.
Some tanks, firing at enemy emplacements, were scattered along the beach,
but the Rangers saw no other troops and had the impression of being alone
on the beach; less than a quarter mile to their left, the 5th Ranger Battalion
was touching down on a beach already crowded with assault infantry. Within
a few minutes of reaching the wall, the survivors of Companies A and B
dashed over the promenade road beyond

Page 78

the sea wall and got into the cover of shrubbery surrounding the wrecked
villas that line this stretch of the beach flat. Eighteen Rangers of Company
B turned right and, hugging the foot of the slope, went several hundred
yards toward the Vierville draw, intending to go up that exit in accordance
with original plans. Nearing the draw and facing heavy fire on an open
stretch of the flat, the group retraced its steps. Meantime, Company A's
men and a few from B, after crossing the road in several scattered groups
led by noncommissioned officers, had worked through the villas and were
trying the bluff at different points. They were joined by a machinegun
section of Company D, 116th RCT, and three DD tanks helped by silencing
enemy positions on the flanks which had been giving trouble. Two Rangers
of Company A reached the top above and found enemy trenches, containing
two or three machinegun emplacements, in plain sight just beyond the military
crest. In a few minutes another group of six Rangers joined up, and they
started out to investigate the apparently empty trenches. Machine-gun fire
opened from two points as Germans came out of dugouts and manned their
positions. They had waited too long. The leading Rangers were within 20
yards, and more small parties were coming up behind them. Working in twos
and threes, they mopped up the enemy emplacements, taking six prisoners
and killing as many more. Only three of the attacking force were casualties.
Company B now came up, having got back from its try toward the Vierville
exit, and the 5th Ranger Battalion was in sight on the bluff top to the
left. The 2d Battalion men joined them for the move inland. This action
took place between 0800 and 0830, widened the area of penetration on Dog
White, and probably aided in the success of the larger advance to the east
by covering its right flank.

Page 79

The Beach: 0800-1200

The assault had gone forward, but not according to pull (Maps Nos. VII
and VIII). Penetrations had been made where enemy defenses were thin and
lightly held, on the long stretches of bluff between the draws scheduled
for use as exits. The F-1 strong-point was knocked out, but the exit route
here was so steep that no plans had been made for its early use, and there
were no engineer parties at hand. In the case of the main draws, only at
E-1 was a strongpoint (on the east side) being reduced by flanking action
of a force which turned aside for this purpose after getting up the bluff;
elsewhere, the small and often scattered assault groups were fighting inland
toward their assembly areas. As a result, nearly all the enemy strongpoints
defending the vital draws were still in action, especially at E-3 and D-3
which were scheduled for use by the first movement of traffic off the beach.
On large stretches of the beach there was still enough fire to make landings
costly and to stop all movement in front of the draws. The engineers, hampered
by landing on wrong beaches and by loss of equipment, were unable to start
on their main job of opening the beach for traffic. At 0800, there were
no gaps anywhere in the shingle embankment to permit movement onto the
beach flat.

As a result, the penetrations made in the next two hours could not be
followed up properly. Vehicles were beginning to arrive, but they found
only a narrow strip of sand to occupy and nowhere to move even for shelter
from enemy fire. This fire and the difficulties with obstacles in the higher
water led many craft to come in on Easy Green and Easy Red instead of other
sectors, thereby threatening to clog that beach with vehicles under destructive
artillery fire from the flanks. Consequently, the commander of the 7th
Naval Beach Battalion radioed an order (about 0830) suspending all landings
of vehicles. During the next few hours scores of craft, including dukws
and rhino-ferries, were milling about off the Easy Green and Easy Red sectors,
waiting for a chance to come in. The dukws had particular difficulty in
the rough seas, in which they had to run at least at half throttle to maintain
steerage way. The consumption this entailed would exhaust a fuel tank in
10 to 12 hours, leaving the craft in danger of foundering. The tie-up affected
the heavier weapons scheduled to support the attack off the beach and inland.
The Antitank Company of the 116th RCT landed one gun platoon of three 57-mm's,
but they had to remain under fire for hours before they could move off
the sand. Only two antiaircraft guns of the 16th RCT were landed out of
two batteries, the others being sunk in the effort to unload. The Cannon
Company of the 16th RCT got its halftracks ashore at 0830 after two attempts,
but they could not move more than 50 yards through the litter of disabled
vehicles. Its 6 howitzers were loaded on dukws, which were swamped one
by one in the heavy seas with a loss of 20 personnel. Artillery units of
the regimental combat teams were having a hard time getting toward shore,
where they were scheduled to land between 0800 and 0900. The 111th Field
Artillery Battalion of the 116th RCT suffered complete disaster. The forward
parties, including observers, liaison and reconnaissance sections, and
the command group, landed between 0730 and 0830 in front of les Moulins.
Remnants of the 2d BLT were immobilized there in front of the draw, and
the artillery personnel suffered as heavily as had the infantry in getting
from their craft to the shingle. They quickly decided that the guns could
not land there, but their radio had been disabled by sea water and no radio

Page 80

on the beach was working. Lt. Col. Thornton L. Mullins, commander of
the battalion, said, "To hell with our artillery mission. We've got
to be infantrymen now." Although already wounded twice, Colonel Mullins
went to work organizing little groups of infantry. Leading a tank forward,
he directed its fire against an emplacement and as he started toward another
tank across an open stretch, was killed by a sniper.

The howitzers of the battalion were coming in on 13 dukws, each carrying
14 men, 50 rounds of 105-mm ammunition, sandbags, and all essential equipment
for set-up and maintenance. This load made the dukws hard to maneuver from
the start, especially for inexperienced crews. Five dukws were swamped
within half a mile after leaving the LCT's. Four more were lost while circling
in the rendezvous area. One turned turtle as they started for the beach;
another got within 500 yards of shore, stopped because of engine trouble,
and was sunk by machine-gun bullets. The last two dukws went on and about
0900 were close enough to see that there was no place to land on the beach.
When they drew together and stopped to talk things over, one was disabled
by machine-gun fire and then set ablaze by an artillery hit. Eight men
swam ashore or to another craft. The surviving dukw had some near misses
from artillery shells, turned away from the shore, and tried to find out
from both shore and Navy where to go in. Shore gave contradictory advice;
Navy had no ideas at all. The dukw pulled alongside a rhino-ferry to wait,
but in a short time the crew realized the craft was in a sinking condition.
Determined to save the howitzer, two or three men stayed on. They managed
to move the dukw as far as another rhino with a crane aboard, and unloaded
the howitzer on this craft. The one gun of the 111th got ashore that afternoon
in charge of the 7th Field Artillery Battalion.

Several other artillery units fared almost as badly. The 7th Field Artillery
Battalion (16th RCT) lost six of its 105's on dukws that swamped en route
to shore; the others could not land. The 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion
had taken part in the fire support of the first landings, firing from LCT's.
The commanding officer and reconnaissance officer were casualties soon
after landing at 0730. At 1030, three of its LCT's attempted to land and
struck mines; one capsized, one sank in seven feet of water, and a howitzer
on the third was jettisoned to keep the craft afloat. The 62d Armored Field
Artillery Battalion, likewise involved in the preliminary bombardment,
attempted no landings in the morning. Elements of two self-propelled antiaircraft
battalions (the 197th and 467th) began to land after 0830. Losses in personnel
and halftracks were considerable, but the guns were used in close support
of infantry for fire on German emplacements.

Conditions on the beach improved in the later morning. Fire from the
main enemy strongpoints was gradually reduced, as one gun emplacement after
another was knocked out, often by tanks. Fighting both the enemy and the
tide, the tanks were leading a hard life, caught on the sand between high
water and the embankment, unable to get past the shingle to the beach flat,
and an open target for enemy guns. Unit control was almost impossible,
with tanks scattered over long stretches of beach and hampered in maneuver.
The commander of the 741st Tank Battalion came ashore at 0820 with a 509
radio, but the radio was damaged by salt water and failed to function.
The small command group had to contact individual tanks up and down the
beach in an effort to control operations, losing three of its five members
in the process. At the other end of the beach, Lt. Col. John S. Upham,
Jr., commanding the 743d, was shot down as he

Page 81

walked over to a tank for better direction of its fire. Nevertheless,
the tanks kept on firing: one of them, disabled, until the rising tide
drowned out the guns, others while the crew worked on dismounted tracks.
Their achievement cannot be summed up in statistics; the best testimony
in their favor is the casual mention in the records of many units, from
all parts of the beach, of emplacements neutralized by the supporting fire
of tanks. In an interview shortly after the battle, the commander of the
2d Battalion, 116th Infantry, who saw some of the worst fighting on the
beach at les Moulins, expressed as his opinion that the tanks "saved
the day. They shot the hell out of the Germans, and got the hell shot out
of them."

The destroyer Carmick, by what was described as "silent cooperation,"
did her best to help some tanks on Dog Green which had managed to get up
on the promenade road and were trying to fight west toward the Vierville
draw. The destroyer's observers watched for the tanks' fire to show targets
on the bluff edge, and then used the bursts as a point of aim for the Carmick's
guns.

Support from naval units, necessarily limited during the first landings,
began to count heavily later on. Some of the landing craft had tried to
support the debarking troops with the fire from their light guns. When
Company G was landing near les Moulins, the infantry saw a patrol craft
stand off directly in front of the enemy strongpoint to the east of the
draw and pump shell after shell into it. German artillery got the craft's
range and forced it

Page 82

ashore, still firing; it continued in action until a shell made a direct
hit, setting the craft ablaze. Later in the morning, two landing craft
made a conspicuous, fighting arrival in front of E-3 draw. LCT 30 drove
at full speed through the obstacles, all weapons firing, and continued
the fire on an enemy emplacement after touchdown. At the same time LCI
(L) 544 rammed through the obstacles, firing on machine-gun nests in a
fortified house. These exploits also helped demonstrate that the obstacles
could be breached by larger craft, which had been hesitating at the approaches.

Naval gunfire became a major factor as communications improved between
shore and ships. At first, targets were still hard to find; Gunfire Support
Craft Group reported at 0915 that danger to friendly troops hampered fire
on targets of opportunity; an NSFCP in contact with ships was told by General
Cota (about 0800) that it was "unwise to designate a target."
Between 1000 and 1100 two destroyers closed to within a thousand yards
to put the strong-points from les Moulins eastward under heavy, effective
fire. All along the beach, infantry pinned at the sea wall and engineers
trying to get at the draws to carry out their mission were heartened by
this intervention. One result may have bee the decision to try to get some
tanks through E-3 draw. At 1100, Colonel Taylor ordered all tanks available
to go into action at that exit route. Of the several tanks that were able
to move along the beach to the rallying point, only three arrived, and
two of these were knocked out as they tried to go up the draw.

One of the participants in this effort was Capt. W. M. King, who had
been ordered to round up all the tanks and get them to E-3 draw. Captain
King ran along the beach to the west, notifying each tank as he came to
it. When he reached the last tank, he found the commander wounded and took
over. Backing away from the shingle, King drove east, weaving in and out
of the wreckage along the beach. He made 200 yards, then circled toward
the water to avoid a tangle of vehicles and wounded men. A Teller mine,
probably washed off a beach obstacle, blew the center bogie assembly of
and broke the track. King and the crew proceeded on foot to E-3. [15]

The decisive improvement along the beach came at E-1 draw. The strongpoint
on the east side had been neutralized by flanking action of the platoon
from Company E, 16th Infantry, after it reached the bluff top. The unfinished
strongpoint on the other side was still partly in action, but was being
contained by fire from Company M, 116th Infantry. Engineers of the 37th
Engineer Combat Battalion were able to bulldoze their first gap through
the dune line, just east of this draw, about 1000 Company C of the 149th
Engineer Combat Battalion made another gap to the west. The destroyers'
intervention speeded up the progress; in the next two hours the antitank
ditch was filled, mines were cleared, and the approach to the draw was
made ready for vehicles. During the same period major infantry reinforcements
were landing in front of E-1, and the last remnants of enemy resistance
at that draw were about to be overpowered.

Landing of Reinforcements on Easy Red

The 18th RCT had been scheduled to land on Easy Red in column of battalions,
beginning about 0930. After passing the line of departure, the first wave
(LCVP's and LCM's) ran into difficulties in maintaining formation and steering
a straight course; there was much congestion of traffic toward

[15] In the illustration on p. 107, King's tank. No. 9 of Company A,
741st Tank Battalion, can be seen at the spot where it as left, disabled.
It is believed that this same tank, No. 9, is the one shown in the assault
landing on p. 44.

Page 83

shore, with craft of all descriptions maneuvering in every direction.
The 2d Battalion began landing just west of E-1 shortly after 1000. As
they neared shore, troops of the 18th had no impression that any progress
had been made from the beach: "The beach shingle was full of tractors,
tanks, vehicles, bulldozers, and troops-the high ground was still held
by Germans who had all troops on the beach pinned down-the beach was still
under heavy fire from enemy small arms, mortars and artillery." The
underwater obstacles caused great difficulties, even though a narrow gap
had been cleared near E-1; the Navy report for the transport group carrying
the 18th Infantry lists 22 LCVP's, 2 LCI (L)'s and 4 LCT's as lost at the
beach, nearly all from being staved in by log ramps or hitting mines. Nevertheless,
personnel losses in the 18th Infantry were light.

On the right of E-1, the 2d Battalion found an enemy pillbox still in
action. Fire from a tank supported the infantry in a first attempt, but
the attack was stalled until naval fire was laid on. The NSFCP contacted
a destroyer about 1,000 yards off shore and coordinated its action with
the infantry assault. The affair was very nicely timed; the destroyer's
guns, firing only a few yards over the crowded beach, got on the target
at about the fourth round and the pillbox surrendered. Twenty Germans were
taken prisoners. Thus, at about 1130, the last enemy defenses in front
of E-1 draw

Page 84

were reduced. Within half an hour, engineers of the 16th RCT were clearing
mines in the draw, and the Engineer Special Brigade Group units were working
dozers on the western slope to push through an exit. E-1 became the main
funnel for movement of the beach, beginning with troops.

The troop movement inland, however, was slowed up by congested landings
at this one area. Shortly after the first units of the 18th RCT had landed,
the LCI (L)'s of the 115th Infantry began to touch down on top of them.
The 115th, in reserve in Force "O," was scheduled by lastminute
plans of V Corps to land at 1030 on Dog Red and Easy Green beaches. The
LCI's were unable to find the control vessel for these sectors and came
in very much to the east, on Easy

Page 85

Red, where the 18th Infantry had started landing. [16] The result was
further congestion and confusion off that sector, and considerable delays
for both regiments, both in making shore and in getting of the beach. Instead
of getting in between 1030 and 1130, the 3d and 1st Battalions of the 18th
Infantry did not land until about 1300. Meantime, all the battalions of
the 115th had come in together instead of at intervals, and the result
was a partial scrambling of units on the beach. The 2d Battalion of the
18th got off before noon; it was nearly 1400 before the 115th had started
inland, along with the remainder of the 18th. Reorganization and movement
were complicated by enemy fire on the beach area and by the difficulties
of getting through minefields on the narrow cleared paths. Fortunately,
enemy mortar fire was apparently unobserved and ineffective, and artillery
fire, now coming from inland, was directed at the landing craft. These
suffered some hits, but casualties among the troops were light. Movement
of the crowded beach took place on both sides of the draw rather than through
it, since there were minefields and enemy emplacements up the draw inland.
As the 2d Battalion of the 18th Infantry moved out, orders were received
from Brig. Gen. Willard G. Wyman, assistant division commander of the 1st
Division, to take over the mission of the 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry.
The 18th Infantry unit therefore moved left down Easy Red to the penetration
route of the 16th and followed it toward Colleville. The battalions of
the 115th pushed off toward assembly points southeast of St-Laurent, where
they planned to reorganize; Col. Eugene N. Slappey, commanding, found General
Wyman on the beach and received orders to carry out his primary mission
in the Longueville area. However, before Colonel Slappey left to follow
his battalions, General Cota arrived with news from the 116th zone. On
consultation with General Wyman, it was decided that one battalion of the
115th would be used to clean up StLaurent. Radios were not working, and
Colonel Slappey had heard nothing from his battalions when he started inland
about 1600 to find them.

[16] LCI 553 beached almost as far east as the E-3 draw, where it was
disabled by mines. (See illustration p. 15).

News of the movement inland from Easy Red reached the higher command,
and was doubly welcome because V Corps Headquarters had been sweating through
the first hours of the assault with very little information on what was
really happening ashore. Back on the Ancon direct messages from the beach
were almost entirely lacking, and Headquarters depended on what it picked
up from reports of the Navy and from its Forward Information Detachment
under Colonel Talley. This detachment tried to get to shore early on two
dukws, but decided that radio equipment would probably be lost under the
conditions of landing. Therefore, the dukws were kept cruising up and down
the beach a few hundred yards off shore. Unfortunately, information both
from this source and the Navy were limited by the difficulties of observation,
and delays in transmittal; early news at V Corps Headquarters was fragmentary
and not encouraging. Messages brought word of craft sunk, of heavy enemy
artillery fire, of dukws swamping, and of troops pinned down. The first
penetrations were made by small units on slopes often obscured by smoke
or brush, and apparently escaped all notice from seaward observers. Main
attention was naturally focused on the exits, where no progress was being
made. At 0945, V Corps made its first report to First Army: "Obstacles
mined, progress slow. 1st Battalion, 116th, reported 0748 being held up
by machine-gun fire-two LCT's knocked out by artillery fire. DD tanks for
Fox Green swamped." At 1155 Corps was still so far behind the situation
that its next report to Army reads "situation beach exits Easy Fox
and Dog still critical at 1100. 352d Infantry Division (German) identified115th
Infantry directed to clear high ground southwest of Easy Red at 1131-16th
and 116th ashore, fighting continuous on beaches, vehicles coming ashore
slowly. Reported that some Germans surrendering Easy Green." From
1055 on, Colonel Talley had sent in some scraps of better news: "infiltration
approximately platoon up draw midway between exits E-1 and Easy 3";
and "Men advancing up slope behind Easy Red, men believed ours on
skyline." But these messages did not come into Corps Headquarters
until 1225-1243. Not until 1309 could V Corps make its first favorable
report to Army: "Troops formerly pinned down on beaches Easy Red,
Easy Green, Fox Red advancing up heights behind beaches." From that
time on the Headquarters begins to catch up more closely with the situation,
and the further information becomes more reassuring .

Another example of the difficulties of ship-to-shore communications,
and of the limited observation from seaward, is furnished by the report
of a naval officer in the fire-support group. Shortly after noon, he came
in close to shore, under fire from enemy guns. "Troops were plainly
visible on the beach lying in the sand. So were the dead. Heavy machine-gun
fire was coming from enemy positions halfway up the hill. Troops were unable
to advance." Anxious to aid in breaking what seemed to be a stalemate,
the officer requested permission from higher headquarters to lay down a
rocket barrage. The request was denied because of the danger to assaulting
troops "who may have filtered through."

The Rangers at Pointe du Hoe

While the main assault was proceeding on Omaha beaches, three companies
(D, E, and F) of the 2d Ranger Battalion were engaged in an isolated action
three miles to the west (Map No. 6). Led by Lt. Col. James E. Rudder, commander
of the Provisional Ranger Force, about 200 men came in at Pointe

Page 88

du Hoe. Their primary mission was to seize that fortified position and
neutralize its battery of six 155-mm howitzers, which could put fire on
the whole Omaha approaches, from the craft assembly area in to the beaches.

The mission presented special difficulties. The beach at the Point was
a 25-yard strip, surmounted by sheer cliff 85 to 100 feet high. The Rangers
had been training for several months on English cliffs of similar character,
and, as a result of experiment aided by the experiences of British Commandos,
they had developed special equipment for their task. Each of the 10 LCA's
was fitted with 3 pairs of rocket guns, firing grapnels which pulled up
(by pairs) 3/4-inch plain ropes, toggle ropes, and rope ladders. In addition,
each craft carried a pair of small hand-projector-type rockets, which could
be easily carried ashore and fired small ropes. Each craft also carried
tubular-steel extension ladders made up of light, four-foot sections suitable
for quick assembly. Four dukws mounted a 100-foot extension ladder, firedepartment
type. Personnel of the assault parties carried minimum loads, with heavier
weapons amounting to four BAR's and two 60-mm mortars per company. Two
supply craft brought in packs, rations, demolitions, and extra ammunition
for the three companies.

Their assault plan provided for landing at H Hour, Companies E and F
on the east side of the Point, Company D to the west. Unfortunately, one
of the accidents of misdirection befell the Rangers; they headed eastward
so far that, when the mistake was corrected, they had to approach the Point
from that quarter on a course close to and almost paralleling the shore.
Under fire from strongpoints along the cliffs, the flotilla came in 40
minutes late. This delay meant that the eight other companies of Rangers
(A and B of the 2d Battalion, and the entire 5th Battalion), waiting off
shore for word of the assault, did not follow in to Pointe du Hoe but went
toward Vierville.

One LCA had been swamped, going down soon after leaving the transport
area; one of the supply boats sank 15 minutes after the start, and the
other jettisoned all packs aboard in order to stay afloat; one dukw was
hit and sunk by 20-mm fire from a cliff position near the Point. The 9
surviving LCA's came in on a 400-yard front on the east side of the Point.
Naval fire had been lifted since H Hour, and the enemy had been given time
to recover and to man the trenches above the cliff. The destroyer Satterlee
observed their movement and swept the cliff top with fire from all guns;
nevertheless, scattered small-arms fire and automatic fire from a flanking
machine-gun position beat around the LCA's, causing about 15 casualties
as the Rangers debarked on the heavily cratered strip of beach. The rockets
had been fired immediately on touchdown. Some of the water-soaked ropes
failed to carry over the cliff, but only one craft failed to get at least
one grapnel to the edge. In one or two cases, the demountable extension
ladders were used. The dukws came in but could not get across the cratered
beach, and from the water's edge their extension ladders would not reach
the top of the cliff.

Germans appeared on the cliff edge and started to harass the Rangers
directly below them with rifle fire and grenades. This show of enemy resistance
was promptly discouraged; BAR men picked off the riflemen as they exposed
themselves, and the destroyer Satterlee, coming in at close range, swept
the cliff top with a few minutes of concentrated fires from all her guns.
The escalade was not delayed. In less than five minutes from time o touchdown,
the first Rangers, by one type of rope or another, were getting to the
cliff top. Some, covered with mud from having fallen into deep crater-pools
on the beach, had trouble in

Page 89

climbing. A few ropes had been cut by the enemy or had slipped from
the anchorage. The first men up waited no longer than it took for three
or four to assemble, then moved out on prearranged missions toward the
gun positions. They found themselves in a no-man's land of incredible destruction
all landmarks gone, and the ground so cratered that if men got 15 feet
apart they were immediately out of contact. Only a few enemy were seen,
and these were quickly driven to cover in a network of ruined trenches
connecting deep dugouts and emplacements. One after another, the small
advance parties reached their appointed gun emplacements, only to find
them empty.

Page 90

The gun positions, three of them casemated, were partly wrecked; the
guns had been removed. Without hesitation, the Ranger parties started inland
on their next mission: to reach the coastal highway, set up a defensive
position cutting that main route between Vierville and Grandcamp, and await
the arrival of the 116th Infantry from Omaha Beach.

Page 91

0800; farther west, a dozen or so from Company F came out on the blacktop
at the same time and joined up. The force took up a defensive position
in fields just beyond the road, putting one group in position to block
the highway toward Grandcamp. A few enemy parties had been met and driven
off with losses during the speedy advance.

Patrolling was started at once. About 0900, two Rangers went down a
lane 200 yards of the main road and found the missing battery of 5 guns.
Cleverly camouflaged, they were sited for fire on either Omaha or Utah
Beach and large ammunition stocks were ready at hand, but there were no
enemy in or near the position. The patrol put two guns out of commission
with incendiary grenades and went back for more grenades. While they were
gone, a second patrol finished the job of disabling the guns and set fire
to the powder. Word was sent back to the Point that the main objective
had thus been accomplished.

There was mounting evidence that the enemy on or near the Point was
recovering from his confusion. East of the fortified area a machine-gun
emplacement which had caused most of the losses on the beach was assaulted
by some men of Company F. They were unable to reach it, and the position
remained in action until the whole cliff edge was blown into the sea by
naval fire late in the morning. Just west of the Point an antiaircraft
emplacement near the cliff edge began to sweep the Point with fire. By
0740 all the Ranger boat teams were up, and a dozen men of the late-comers
were diverted from going inland and sent to attack this antiaircraft position.
As they worked toward it through craters, artillery and mortar fire stopped
them and the party scattered. A few minutes later a German counterattack,
emerging from tunnels or nearby trenches, overwhelmed and captured all
but one man. So torn up was the ground that the command post group, in
a crater only a hundred yards away, was unaware of what had happened until
the survivor returned. Another assault was hastily improvised, consisting
of a dozen riflemen and a mortar section. They got halfway to the strongpoint
and were caught by artillery fire, which killed or wounded nearly every
man in the party.

For the rest of the day the small force on the Point was in a state
approaching siege. Enemy snipers appeared in the fortified area, and despite
several attempts, the Rangers could never clean out the maze of wrecked
positions. Three or four Germans still held out on the tip of the Point
in an undamaged concrete observation post. During the afternoon two enemy
counterattacks coming from the direction of StPierre-du-Mont were stopped,
the most dangerous one by accurate and rapid fire from the Rangers' only
remaining mortar. The antiaircraft position was still very much in action,
and destroyer fire could not quite reach it. Communication with the advance
party on the highway was intermittent, depending chiefly on patrols that
occasionally had to fight their way through.

The command post on the Point was out of communication with the assault forces
on the main beaches, but was able to contact naval support ships with blinker
and (later) radio. Naval Shore Fire Control Party No. 1 was able to establish
communications as early as 0728 with the Satterlee, which stayed on hand for
the rest of D Day and gave extremely useful fire support. In the afternoon a
message from the Point came through to V Corps via the Navy, "Located Pointe
du Hoe-mission accomplished-need ammunition and reinforcement-many casualties."
This, the only word received on D Day from Colonel Rudder's force, left considerable
doubt and anxiety at headquarters.